


Perfect In Its Own Way

by neutronstarcollision



Series: A Perfect Christmas Morning [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Canadian Men's National Ice Hockey Team, Chicago Blackhawks, Christmas, Gen, Team Canada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-10 00:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11115672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutronstarcollision/pseuds/neutronstarcollision
Summary: Jonathan Toews' Christmas morning doesn't quite start off the way that he would have liked.





	Perfect In Its Own Way

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this companion piece to "A Perfect Christmas Morning" for a while, so here it is - in June (sorry).

Jonny had always woken up early on Christmas morning. As a kid, waking up early meant that he could open up his gifts, which were always hockey equipment, and then have all day to play hockey with David on the outdoor rink that his dad would have spent several nights making sure was perfect. When he got older and started playing in the NHL, waking up early meant that he could get his daily workout out of the way earlier, and then spend the rest of the day with his family, a luxury that he didn’t have during the rest of the season. Having the whole day ahead of him was Jonny’s idea of a perfect Christmas morning.  

 _So much for a perfect Christmas morning_ , Jonny couldn’t help but think as he looked at the clock next to his bed and groaned. Somehow he had apparently forgotten to turn on his alarm last night, because he had wanted to wake up _two hours ago_. Normally, his internal body clock would have woken him up earlier, but Christmas Eve turkey dinner with his family had clearly destroyed his internal body clock, not to mention his nutrition plan. He had promised to be at his parents’ place for Christmas Day brunch in two hours, and he still needed to do his daily workout before then. Jonny cursed himself for messing up his plans for the morning.

He forced himself to sit up, turned on the morning news on his TV out of habit and instinctively grabbed his phone, scrolling through quickly for any important messages. There were a bunch of merry Christmas texts from family, Blackhawks teammates, the usual Team Canada teammates and other friends, including a hilarious one from Sharpy, all of which he would reply to later.

“It seems to be a quiet Christmas morning across the country, but snow appears to be blanketing all of Nova Scotia,” the weather person on TV stated, and Jonny’s ears perked up at the mention of Nova Scotia. _Sid must be happy_ , he thought, and then he suddenly remembered. _Shit_.

Jonny didn’t quite know why, but sending Sid an early morning Christmas text had become something of a tradition since 2009. He could still remember waking up early that morning, looking out into the snow coming down hard - it had been Christmas in Winnipeg at his parents’ house, so of course it had snowed - and thinking that 2009 had been pretty great, and now the only thing he really wanted before the year was over was a phone call from Hockey Canada the week after inviting him to join Team Canada on home ice at the Olympics.

He still didn’t know why he had texted Sid of all people that morning. He had met him a few times and they had been friendly, but they weren’t close friends, nor did they have any type of regular communication - but the last time that he had seen Sid, they had talked about how much they both wanted to make the team. Jonny had thought that it would be a slam-dunk for _Sidney Freaking Crosby_ to make the team, but Sid had expressed his doubts, especially after being passed over during the selection process for the 2006 team. Jonny had confessed to Sid that he didn’t think that he had much of a chance, but he had hoped to at least be in the conversation. Sid had told him that if Hockey Canada had been paying attention, Jonny would be on the team, period.

So maybe that’s why Jonny had impulsively sent Sid a message that morning that had said “Merry Christmas Sid - hoping to put on the red and white with you in Vancouver in February”, and then had spent a few minutes wondering if Sid even texted, what with him not being the biggest fan in the world of technology and all. But Sid had replied pretty quickly with “Merry Christmas to you too, Jonny. That would be a pretty great Christmas present for us both, eh?” and Jonny had been relieved that Sid hadn’t thought that his message had come out of nowhere.

Ever since then, sending an early morning Christmas text to Sid sharing a wish for the next year had become something of a Christmas tradition. Jonny was always the first one to text on Christmas morning, and they had kind of stuck with that pattern - possibly because Sid was a bit crazy about his superstitions, but maybe also because they were both creatures of habit.

The texts always stuck to hockey in some way (a wish for their teams to meet in the Cup Final, for the lockout to end soon, for them to bring a gold medal home from Sochi and most recently, a wish for them to win the World Cup on home ice), but 2011’s had been a bit more personal. Jonny, who had worried about whether Sid would ever return to hockey (like most of the hockey world that year), had wished Sid a full recovery from his concussion. Sid had sent a nice reply, but Pat, their shared agent, had told Jonny months later how much his message had meant to Sid.

In a sad irony, Jonny had appreciated a similarly kind message from Sid only a year later when he went through a concussion of his own. In fact, it had been that message that had spurred a bunch of back and forth texts between them during Jonny’s concussion recovery, and that had actually brought them closer together. They still didn’t talk all the time like he did with his Blackhawks teammates, for example, but there was a special understanding between them now, with shared experiences that bound them together.

So maybe that’s why he had started taking these Christmas texts seriously, Jonny justified to himself every Christmas morning, when he’d start the morning off with a text to Sid, and then texts to family, friends and teammates. And maybe that’s why this time around, he’d had his annual Christmas morning text to Sid written a few days ago, saved as a draft on his phone. Sure, it was a bit cheesy to put that much effort into a Christmas text, but Jonny wasn’t a fan of doing things half-assedly. And looking at the time now, he was glad that he had already written and re-read his text half a dozen times instead of wasting time writing it now.

He looked up at his TV, where the weather person was showing footage of heavy snow in Nova Scotia. He grinned and added a line to the text, knowing how fond Sid was of the snow.

 _I saw on TV that it’s snowing out in your neck of the woods and thought that you’d probably be the happiest person in Canada this morning. Merry Christmas Sid, and may 2017 bring us a Blackhawks/Penguins Cup Final, eh? I want to see you put up my picture on your Cup winners wall again ;) Hope you’re having a perfect Christmas morning._ _  
_ _\- Jonny_

It looked okay, Jonny thought, and grinned thinking about how Sid, during the World Cup, had laughed ridiculously hard at the idea that Jonny had actually seen that documentary of him in which he had shown his Cup winners wall. He’d get a good laugh out of the reference, Jonny thought, so he hit send and then put his phone down.

One hot shower later, his teeth brushed and his stomach grumbling to signal his need for breakfast, Jonny picked up his phone to see a text from Sid.

 _Merry Christmas to you too, Jonny. You figured me out - I’ve never been so excited to get out there and shovel my driveway, haha. Hoping to face you in the Cup Final in June but don’t even think that you’re going up on my Cup winners wall again ;) Hope you’re having a perfect Christmas morning too.  
_ _\- Sid_

Jonny smiled, and was just about to put his phone down to go grab some breakfast when one more message from Sid popped up.

_Oh, and don’t beat yourself up over sleeping in, Captain Serious. ;)_

Jonny couldn’t help but grin. Maybe it wasn’t his usual perfect Christmas morning, but it was kind of perfect in its own way.

**Author's Note:**

> The Cup winners wall in Sid's house in Nova Scotia was shown in the Pittsburgh Penguins' mini-documentary "There's No Place Like Home with Sidney Crosby" from the summer of 2015. On the wall are pictures of the captain of the Cup-winning team each year hoisting the Cup, and the video shows Toews' picture on the wall at least twice, one for 2010 and one for 2013 (it's not clear from the video if Sid already had the 2015 picture up yet). I'm very entertained by the fact that Jonny's picture is on Sid's wall THREE TIMES.


End file.
